tree lighting rediculousness!

Ridiculousness! that's the only thing that i can say about my experiences tonight trying to get to Rockefeller's Center to see the annual Christmas tree lighting... I arrived there around 6:30... and it was Packed! i have to say it was worse than Halloween... at least at Halloween it was spread out around such a wide area that it wasn't nearly as congested as it was tonight at Rockefeller Plaza... it was probably around the same number of people but packed into the same single city block... it was totally ridiculous!

This is as close to the tree as I got before I said... forget this I am leaving... this was around 7 and guess what they were not even going to light the damn tree until 9 pm! What the F, are all these people going to do? Stand there for 2 hours?? totally nuts... and i heard some cop telling people that you had to have a pass of some sort to even close to seeing the tree and if you didn't have a pass then 'forget about it' you weren't gonna see the tree so go home... *insert new york accent here* forgeddaboutet! GO Home! and i have never seen so many idle police officers in my life! Man that must be an easy gig... stand there look intimidating and get paid... I'm jealous...My fave part of the night was when some announcer guy was trying to get the crowd all excited and stuff before the singing acts came on to perform and he was yelling out to crowd, "So who here is from Brooklyn? Who's here representing Queens?...etc..." and the crowd would yell after he said a name of a place... but when he said Manhattan there was a definite silence from the crowd... he he he Manhattan residents know better than to go to things like that with big crowds and lots of loonies and children running around... they are watching it from the best seat in the house, at home in front of their television sets. hysterical.

So I finally met up with Miss Kelli after she pushed her way out of the crowd that was swallowing her... and we collectively and rapidly decided to skip the tree lighting madness and go to Saks instead... we were really hoping to find a cafe or a window... and there is a cafe on the 5th floor with a window... but the cafe kinda sucked so we took some pictures of the tree and high tailed it outta there... it was close enough... and I have never seen Saks so EMPTY! omg... no one around at all... everyone was outside on the sidewalk craning their neck trying to see the big tree? did i miss something? people here take the holidays really seriously. I'm talking knock down drag out serious.

\ Kelli and I looking at the tree from Saks...

Da Tree! Da Tree! and a few ice skaters...?

and as crazy as this is... I can only imagine it will be a fraction of the craziness of New Years Eve in New York... I don't even want to think about it... but you think that we would learn by now how to do holidays in NYC... Arrive early if you want to see anything and be prepared for the crowds and the screaming children... oh joy, oh rapture... Kelli and I are trying to figure out a way to outsmart the crowds for next time... you'll see... we can do it!


A cool picture of St. Patrick's Cathedral that I took tonight... I love that the stained glass is lit from the inside...

a trip to the ZOO!

I went on a little trip to the Central Park Zoo last weekend and it was really fun... made me feel like a kid again...even though we were surrounded by screaming children and pushy parents with very very large strollers, so not a fan of that but anyway, here are some pics to commemorate the experience... Zooooooooooo! (its such a fun word don't lie...)


Yay penguins! for some reason inside the penguin house all my pictures turned out green... weird huh? I assure you the penguins are not actually green!



all of the animals were sleeping... what's up with that?



Look at this adorable sleeping polar bear... awwwww!



another sleeping polar bear... Yay for the Zoooo!

I guess no matter how old you get animals are still just adorable!

Trash Spotlight of the Week

Yes! Totally weird and random...

Jersey Boys on Parade?

Yay for Thanksgiving! the parents are in town! Yay for fun!

Yay for shopping and other fun stuff... and especially Broadway shows! Today I went with the 'rents to see 'Jersey Boys' and it was awesome! I absolutely loved it and highly recommend it! Its all about how Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons became a famous group and all the drama behind the scenes... I mean I knew a few their songs and such going into the show but I never actually knew anything about the actual band behind the music. (and it was defiantly a little like the Sopranos at times (Yay Mafia! awesome) but anyway... I take back any snide comments I have said about New Jersey in the past on my blog... I have (perhaps temporarily) regained new respect for Jersey... The show is definitely a kind of rags to riches story about these average four guys from Jersey who had a bunch of hits and sold a lot of records... I really liked the way they didn't try to incorporate them into the storyline (like they did in a literal abysmal way in Mamma Mia!) It was like this is the story and these are the hits. It was a very honest story... very well written... and they had this cool way of incorporating paintings by Roy Lichtenstein into the scenery through projections and I thought it was very appropriate for the story and the time period. It was really a great show. No wonder it won the Tony last year...

And tonight we walked around the Armory after the show and saw them inflating all the balloons for the thanksgiving day parade tomorrow... it was really exciting (Minus all the the screaming children around... ick!) but it made me feel kind of like a child again (although I was never a screaming annoying child PS...) seeing all the life size sesame street characters and such... my fave was Flying Ace Snoopy... complete with his goggles and helmet. (Snoopy always was my fave. he's so cute.)




Hey Mom! Take my Picture! (aka: me making a retarded face!)
People watching the balloons get blown up from their windows in a near by apartment building... one of the large trucks filled with helium (i think?) that they use to fill up the balloons...





I really want to go to the Macy's Thanksgivings Day Parade tomorrow but its supposed to be pouring and very very windy so I don't know if we will end up making it or not... I hope we will even for just a little while... Its defiantly a New York Institution and I would like to see that... we'll see...

and Today 43 years ago today... President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas... Its always been of interest to me living in Dallas for so long... I went to Dealey Plaza and the infamous grassy knoll and the JFK memorial at a very young age and i have always been fascinated with the story conspiracy or not... What really happened that day?

A walk through central park in late autumn...

A view from the Castle in Central Park! Who knew there was a castle? i loved it!

Mr. Orange

So, as part of my new quest to read as many of the classics as I can (well as I have been for about a year now) I am currently reading 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess. I think it might quite possibly be the best book I have ever read.

Have any of you out in Blogland ever read this book, (or seen the movie)? What did you think of it?

Fascinating. Just Saying.

Later Gator.

The Taxi Driver and A Fashion Adventure!

So, last week my roommate and I were late for work so we decided to take a taxi and of course it was raining and finding a taxi was near impossible... and to make things worse this dude with a cane came and stood on the next block in front of us so he was bound to get a taxi first... and naturally my roommate and I roll our collective eyes because we had already been standing there for like 15 mins waiting for a free cab. so we walk down to the other block in front of this dude with a cane... and we stand there for about 5 mins before this dude comes up to us and asks us if we would mind letting him get the next cab because he was injured (which he did have a cast on and he was getting soaked) He was a young guy, this said man with a cane, and he seemed nice so we agreed to share the next cab that came and he eveb offered to pay for the taxi. And when it finally arrived we all hopped in the backseat, little did we know this would be one of the most memorable taxi rides of our lives...

It started out fine... when like five blocks from where he picked us up he sees a woman on a street corner getting soaked and he stops to pick her up... and all three of us in the backseat kind of look at each other like, 'where the hell is she gonna sit?' but she ends up sitting in the front seat next to the cab driver who proceeds to literally pick her up... He was hitting on her! in front of all us! it was hysterical. I mean are you serious? So they joke about exchanging numbers and going on a date for about 10 mins when this lady finds some evangelical books in the front seat and jokingly picks them up and shows them to us, saying something like well he can't be all bad he loves jesus... and we laugh and then this cab driver starts preaching the jesus to us and he hands us each a pamphlet that tells us how to be saved and he starts arguing with his potential date about jesus and all that, apparently she was more into yoga than religion and said something to that effect and her only religion is philosophy and yoga and this upsets said cab driver very much and he gets very upset by this and they continue to argue and all us peeps in the backseat are looking at each other and thinking how long is this ride going to be?

We reach this lady in the front seat's destination and she gets out saying she's sorry she can't go on a date tonight she has Yoga, which upsets the driver and so he drives off in a huff and sighs and says, 'Yoga! Ha! what do they know those people worship rats and cows!' (Ignorant quote of the week! PS) So he spends the rest of the taxi ride putting the fear of God into us telling us all about how when the judgment day comes all the unbelievers are going to be zapped off the earth and taken to hell in a burst of flames and all the believers are going to be taken up to heaven and saved and all this evangelical rhetoric that being from the Bible belt I have all heard before... and then he starts talking about this get rich quick scam that he is doing where he is going to market some invention that he has and this company is going to help him market it and get patents on it... he just keeps talking and talking and talking and we are trying to talk to this nice guy who is paying for our cab ride, who's name was Greg (i think??) who hurt his foot and just had foot surgery a few days ago and as we learn his company his paying for him to take a cab to work which is why he can offer to pay... which i thought was mildly amusing... but the cab driver keeps interrupting with his jesus talk... anyway we finally get to our destination and we almost leap from the cab thankful to get away from this evangelical man and we thank Greg for the ride and shake his hand and off we go to work...

but oh man... the jesus people are everywhere... be careful.

I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, i mean it must be very lonely driving a cab and never having anyone to talk to... but honestly dude stop forcing your religion on me and what further pisses me off is his assumption that just because we were young that we needed saving because we just ignorant to the ways of the jesus or something. Just because I am young does not mean that I am uninformed damn it. Don't talk to me like I am stupid. What can you do?

But anyway, this week I also saw Micheal Knight from Project Runway fame, at H&M (the one on Fifth Ave of course...) I was there returning something my friend Kelli came up and tapped me on the shoulder while I was at the register and said that's Micheal Knight! OMG! it was very cool. He was on his way out or else we would totally have gone and stalked him down and talked to him... but we thought just seeing hims was pretty cool! Yay for fun!

I was in H&M a lot last week because they introduced the new Viktor and Rolf line on Thursday and that was very exciting new york experience as well... We went on the first day Thursday at noon (please note the store only opens at 10!) and there were mobs of people in the store all grabbing at the clothes on the racks and carrying armfuls and armfuls of things to the dressing room, some even trying things on over the clothes they were wearing... and i swear half of the mechanize had already been bought! I saw several things in the display that were not in the store at all, and and already become fashion legends, the mythical clothes that should be there because they are in the display or in the window but they are already no where to be found! I asked one poor salesperson where to find one of these impossible garments and the poor guy gave me this shell shocked look and gestured to the table where they were at one point that was now close to empty... picked clean of mechanize already! when i finally was ready to check out I stood in line behind this cute Asian woman who was in line in front of me told me all about what had happened there this morning... She had apparently gotten there at ten and was buying one of everything for her daughter... i think that's a bit insane but what can you do? she had like 6 - 10 bags with her and she was holding one white parka jacket and said it was the only thing she didn't buy because she was unsure if she would like it or not but she had to buy it just in case, as she put it, it was the one thing that her daughter wanted she would never forgive her not buying it. Personally I think her daughter will be just fine with everything else she had already bought but what do i know. I thought it was kind of ridiculous actually but whatever works for you lady...

Viva La Mode Pour La Gens! Long Live Fashion for the People!

Trash Spotlight of the Week

Good Clean Trashy Fun!

oh the changing of the seasons...

my new favorite spot in Central Park...

Trash Spotlight of the Week...

I love it. how random.

The marathon in my bedroom

So, yesterday was Sunday... ahhhh, Sunday. My one day off this week where I could sleep in all day and enjoy it. Until I was oh so rudely awakened by the Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'... quite possibly the world's most ANNOYING
song blaring in my room at 9 AM! on a SUNDAY! at first i thought it was the people next door because it literally was shaking the walls... I was so angry! and well annoyed that my beautiful morning of sleeping in had been ruined that I get up to find myPPEs (that's my earplugs for those of you who haven't met Miona) and Locklyn, my all star roomie, comes into my room to commiserate with me that we can't sleep in... AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! why?? So we look outside, where we finally determine the music is coming from and we see all these people outside on the street with ING New York City Marathon posters in their hands... Yes that's right folks the ING Marathon ran right past my apartment building! Of all the places in this HUGE city for the marathon route to go past it had to be past MY building... SoLocklyn and I decided to leave and meet our friends Beth Anne and Kelli for brunch and fun... and yesterday turned out to be tons of fun... but honestly, are you kidding? i could see it from my
window... all you athletic people, you make my ass twitch!

the view from my window...

The GIANT speaker that was blasting music that woke us up!

some spectators...


other than that... Life in New York is Excellent... still working at Radio
City Music Hall (and no Radio City is not like Radio Shack, silly boy)
on the 'Rockettes Christmas Spectacular', which is so fun... Working at Radio City itself is awesome... they are always having major concerts, like the Indigo Girls, James Blunt, and Barenaked Ladies, which is fun since we work backstage ... my fave was when we were leaving one day we take the slowest elevator ever and on the way
down the doors open at the second floor and there is this guy standing
there with what appears to be his entire family... and he sees us in
the elevator and decides I guess to catch the next one... and it was
Paul Simon, who was performing at Radio City that same night. and they
have backstage tours that go through like at Santa Fe Opera, except
they have this display of old costumes set up (that we affectionately
call the 'Costume Morgue') and every once and while a huge group of
people will walk by and you will see a flash of bright light and its
like... what was that bright light?? oh its just the tourists again...
but the weirdest experience so far is everyday you feel this weird like
shaking, where the whole building gently bounces... its really a weird
feeling and at first I thought it had something to do with the lift or
them loading in the scenery or something... but then I asked someone
about it and they were like, oh that's what happens when therockettes practice. How weird is that??? when they practice their kick line it shakes the whole building! wow. I am only refurbing the hats, so its not super exciting work but its enough to keep me busy... for now... ttfn!

New York Halloween (aka: Freaks on Parade)

my view of the parade... this is one of those times I wish I was tall...
the best seat in the house!
a couple standing on one of the crates that were being sold... Seriously?
some cool skeleton puppets that were seriously 8-10 feet tall!

So... its my first Halloween in the city and I wanted to experience the New York Halloween Adventure and so I was told by several people to go to the West Village Halloween parade... so Yesterday around 6 Kelli and I set off to the Village to see the festivities... It was on the whole fun but kind of disappointing... first of all you could not see the parade at all because there were so many PEOPLE there...(except for the huge life sized Banraku puppets which were my personal fave...) I'm talking THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE and everywhere you went people were SUCH drunk ASSHOLES! it was just ridiculous ... (It definatly had that same voyeuristic/ pedophilia feeling of MILL AVE on Halloween but with an element of freakishness I was not expecting... ewwwwww...) I wasn't that dressed up I only had on boots and a cowboy hat(the Regulators Ride Again (well sort of)!!! Where IS Chavez Y Chavez?) but drunk ass loser guys would yell shit at you and call you are whore/proposition you/take your picture... (my personal fave was when one guy literally asked me to 'Ride' him... what the F? Oh HELL NO! No one talks to me like that asshole!) and several times especially at street corners people would get so packed into the mob of people that you could easily gotten crushed if you weren't careful but mostly you just got touched inappropriately/fondled by strangers because there were so many people packed into the crowds and no crowd control... Gross! I felt like I needed a shower after a while... and i was totally underwhelmed by most all of the costumes I saw... literally i saw a lot of repeat costumes that all looked like they came out of a bag from Ricky's = LAME... and most all were poorly made and well for lack of a better word UGLY! and most of the girls were totally half naked, except for the one girl, who was about 16, that i saw who was wearing only duct tape stuck to her naked self. I did see some amazing drag queens though, and even saw one who was checking out this half naked chick that walked by... what is wrong with this picture??

So, after like an hour of walking around with all the freaks and assholes we decided we had had enough and we went and got a few drinks and went home... it was kind of Lame but it was an experience i guess... You saw New York at its worst thats for sure... I literally saw dudes selling crates to people for 10 dollars for people to stand on to see the parade better... how ridiculously New York is that? It was fun, don't get me wrong, i had a blast... but i think once was enough if you know what i mean! Note to Self: next year throw/go to awesome Halloween party not anywhere near the Village... done and done.

Why is Halloween become such a skeezy holiday? its all about men degrading women and objectifying us and i hate it! F**ck off assholes... i am not a whore. leave me alone already! Just because its Halloween doesn't mean you are going to get me drunk enough to sleep with you creepy guy with a videocamera... and WHY do girls my age (and younger) put up with this... can't they see that they deserve to be treated better? Oh, really, Put your clothes back on! That's all i have to say about that...

Help we are stuck in Jersey...

This is my 'Why did I leave the
City?' face...

Somebody get Kelli another Drink... we are gonna need it!

So last weekend Kelli and I had an adventure... to say the least...
We had the best intentions and we were so hoping that it would be awesome but it turned out to be a nightmare...

Kelli asked me to go with her to see the 'Rocky Horror Show' in New Jersey and I was
like I have never seen that I would love to go. Because ever since I read
'Confessions of a Wallflower' I have wanted to go to a real Rocky
Horror movie experience... you know like in 'Fame' where they sing along
with the movie with the shout outs and all... 'cause I love that movie
and it would be tons of fun... SO, i was all over that like white on
rice... and totally excited to go.

So we get on the train and we arrive in New Jersey fine, the train ride was very uneventful, and when we got to the train station in Jersey Kelli and I were instantly like WHY DID WE LEAVE MANHATTAN???!?!? OMG! WHERE ARE WE??

and so I come to find out very very quickly why people who live on the
island never leave the island... (I felt like I was in that episode of
Sex and the City where they leave for the weekend only to realize that
they can't drive... except we had no car...) Let me paint the picture
for you... Me and Kelli somewhere inbtwn Camden and Trenton in a little nothing town called Bordentown... Where the "show" is at a "theatre" that looks more like the
activity room at the local church preschool... with a makeshift stage
and a bunch of chairs set up and a flashlight for a spot light... (I
kid you not!) and I come to find out that it is the Rocky Horror Show
and NOT the Rocky Horror Picture Show... aka its a stage version of the movie! Shoot me now!

and right about now Kelli and I decide we need a few drinks to make this show go better... lol...
so we walk from one end of the strip mall where the theatre was to the
other end where there was an all night diner and we get the strongest
drinks we can and we reluctantly so back to the community room where
the "show" was taking lace and take our seats...

I never considered myself a theatre snob before this moment... but OMG...
i have never seen such a bad show... it was so so bad! (I did student
productions in HIGH SCHOOL that were better than this show)

A of all... there were some people who should not have been wearing what they were wearing as 'costumes'. there is a difference btwn decent and just gross... (lesson of the day: when underwear/corsets are too
tight/too small do not wear it in public its just Indecent! What would your mother say?)
B they did the TIME WARP to their own
choreography!!! ITS THE FREAKING TIME WARP! how can you make up your own choreography?? this completely baffles me!
C the short short man in high stripper boots who was cast as Frank N' Furter had a lisp... which was hysterical (I am a schweet Trwansvestite frwom Trwansexual Trawnselvaniaaaaaa! HE HE HEEEE)
E The effects were Amazingly bad... in addition to the follow spot that was a FLASH LIGHT... the smoke set off the smoke alarm with the fog (he he he)
F they freaking added a random ass extra song to the show... Kelli and I were like WHAT is THIS song? and where did it come from? did you make this up?? and WHY would you do that???
G The show would NOT freaking END!!! It was awwwwful! they kept going and going making it PAINFULLY long at almost 2 hours!
It was like come on just end the show already you can't even do the Time Warp right anyway!

We literally wished we could have left at intermission (and probably would have if one of Kelli's really good friends wasn't in the show that never ends) So, to add
insult to injury because the show would not end we missed our train by 4 mins!! (AWWWWWWWWWW! DAMN!) and we were literally stranded in NEW JERSEY until the next train at 4:15 AM! AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!

So we got dragged to the cast party at some RANDOM ASS house that looked like it was literally on a FARM(!!!) stranded with the 'cast' of the show who just wanted to sit around and talk about how AMAZING their show was... which i can speak for the both of us when I say this was the LAST thing we wanted to do in the WORLD...omg... so we snuck off and took a nap in the extra room and woke up in time to catch our train back to the city... and the director of the show ended up driving us to the train station (talk about the Awkward Shitstorm. we both kept dreading she would ask us, "What did you think of the show" *biting my tongue* Ummmmm, it was a lot of FUN!) But we ended up (thankfully) catching the train back at 4:15 (which was FREEZING! whatever happened to heating on the train? is this a foreign concept to New Jersey Transit??) and we get back to the city and we literally want to kiss the ground... (well not REALLLY kiss the ground but you know what I mean...) I never want to leave the Island again... Its official I cannot see community theatre EVER again. You get totally spoiled seeing such good theatre all the time... i should have known better but now i know for next time, right?

and I still want to see ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW!!! damn it! Never again, Never again! I think that this version has forever ruined this show for me forver. i am scared for life!

But speaking of GOOD SHOWS, I saw 'Little Dog Laughed' on Sunday and it was AMAZING. So Funny... I highly recommend it. Go see it if you can... its so good... I love Broadway its so accessible! I love NYC... I will never leave you again baby...